As part of the anti-Bush campaign, union President Dennis Rivera has recruited 1,000 rank-and-file members and staff to fan out across the country beginning next month to get an early start organizing get-out-the-vote operations in more than a dozen "battleground" states.

Those states, including Florida, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Ohio, are considered key for Democrats to regain the White House.

Each of Rivera's 1,000 volunteers will take a one-year leave of absence from his or her regular job - something permitted by many 1199 labor contracts - with the union paying regular salary and travel costs.

That's a full year before the election.

Most of the time, unions have only gotten active in their own core states a few months before the election-- so getting activists in place in other states so early is a quantum jump in mobilization.

And the union is focusing on raising the funds to make this work-- reportedly aiming to raise $35 to $40 million from state union members.